Russia-Ukraine War (continuing)

How does he manage to get to the frontlines and back without drones taking him out?

What they did with Article 122 is indefinitely block the transfer of Russian Central Bank assets on the basis that to do otherwise would damage the EU's economy. This is the first step to using those assets to help Ukraine.

Belgium proposed many amendments that would have made it more complicated. The Belgium PM protested that we are not at war with Russia, and compared seizing the assets to going into an embassy and taking all the furniture.

But he said Belgium is willing to go along with this if three conditions are met:

• The first condition is the full mutualisation of risks by all member states.The Commission has proposed to split guarantees into two tranches of €105 billion each to cover the €210 billion in Russian assets held on EU territory. However, Belgium seeks greater coverage against any potential eventuality, such as judicial awards.
• The second condition is liquidity safeguards for Euroclear, the Brussels-based institution that holds €185 billion of the immobilised Russian assets. Belgium is worried that, if the assets are released prematurely, Euroclear will be unable to honour its legal claim with the Russian Central Bank and be held liable for breach of contract.
• The third condition from Belgium is complete burden-sharing, which means pooling the €185 billion in assets held at Euroclear and the €25 billion held in private banks in France, Germany, Sweden and Cyprus, as well as Belgium.

Silicon Wafers says that France is still protecting over €18bn in frozen Russian assets there.

Japan is refusing to join the use of the assets to fund Ukraine.

The US behind the scene tried to block the seizure of the Central Bank assets behind the scenes.

Meanwhile there are rumours the UK will join the EU move to use the Russian frozen assets.

Most likely the biggest advocates for Ireland increasing our military spending will be military suppliers. We are flat broke and have no provision for our future social welfare commitments.

Its a pure nonsense to think we can scale up to the level to ward a force of the signicance that would invade us. Greece spent something like 11 billion on US weapons and god knows how much on German stuff including submarines some i believe which were never built pre their crash. I'd personally prefer to see money spent getting rid of the current invaders i.e. single male bogus assylum seekers and not some bogey man threat

As mentioned earlier in the thread,Ukraine expanding their sanctions program

So the estimated 700,000 Russian soldiers currently fighting in Ukraine, do you think after any settlement is reached & fighting stops they'll all just go back to being prisoners/drunks/wasters in Russia?

how does anyone not understand this?…. makes no sense

Flat broke? WTF?

https://www.independent.ie/business/ireland-had-eus-biggest-budget-surplus-at-the-end-of-2022/42307477.html

https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/2024/09/28/cliff-taylor-there-will-be-no-shortage-of-manifesto-promises-with-a-budget-surplus-of-25bn/

The €25.4 billion budget surplus that the Government is forecasting for this year is a modern record for Ireland and one of the highest as a percentage of national income recorded by any country.

They have already invaded the United States and Hungary and are working on France, Britain etc.

Exactly, for Putin, war/aggression is simply another tool used to keep an iron grip on power.

For Russia to function as it does today, it MUST have an enemy, someone "trying to destroy them and their fabulous way of life" etc…. otherwise why have Putin the Brave/Putin the Strong/Putin the Wise as president for life? He's the only one that can fight off all this evil…

It was always the West (headed by the U.S.A.) up until this January this year, now it's just Europe on its own… but either way, someone is Always the enemy, as without an enemy, there's no need for Putin to protect them anymore…

And you'll notice in their rhetoric every single time…. they were forced to invade here, genocide there etc…. they are really a people of peace but everyone around them forces them to attack them…

Channeling Bonnie Prince Charlie?

@Say my name Darth Trump, Vance & Emperor Putin etc are also trying to MEGA ( Make Europe Great Again )

Ireland is not flat broke. In fact, most countries would love to be in our financial situation.

Also, it has nothing to do with asylum seekers. We can do both.

I don’t understand how people think that not spending on military is a good option. You need to be prepared for any situation and the current climate is making it more urgent.
Ireland got rich because it benefited from other countries by being in the EU. We shouldn’t expect the same countries to spend on military to protect the EU and us doing nothing. Being neutral doesn’t mean you shouldn’t help. If my next door neighbour is being attacked in his garden, should I just stand there and watch it while saying “sorry I am against violence”?

whatever little we can have will be better than not having it and it’s as simple as that. If you can’t stop a superiorly equipped & numbered army, you can certainly slow them down…

Look at how important the Javelin, Stugna & NLAW anti tank missile systems were in the early days of the war at repelling mechanised assaults… without them Kiev would have been reached easily…